For three decades in the fifth century b.c. the ancient world was torn apart bya conflict that was as dramatic, divisive, and destructive as the world wars of the twentieth century: the Peloponnesian War. Donald Kagan, one of the world’s most respected classical, political, and military historians, here presents a new account of this vicious war of Greek against Greek, Athenian against Spartan. The Peloponnesian War is a magisterial work of history written for general readers, offering a fresh examination of a pivotal moment in Western civilization. With a lively, readable narrative that conveys a richlydetailed portrait of a vanished world while honoring its timeless relevance, The Peloponnesian War is a chronicle of the rise and fall of a great empire and of a dark time whose lessons still resonate today.

Description du produit

Extrait

INTRODUCTION

For almost three decades at the end of the fifth century b.c. the Athenian Empire fought the Spartan Alliance in a terrible war that changed the Greek world and its civilization forever. Only a half-century before its outbreak the united Greeks, led by Sparta and Athens, had fought off an assault by the mighty Persian Empire, preserving their independence by driving Persia's armies and navies out of Europe and recovering the Greek cities on the coasts of Asia Minor from its grasp.

This astonishing victory opened a proud era of growth, prosperity, and confidence in Greece. The Athenians, especially, flourished, increasing in population and establishing an empire that brought them wealth and glory. Their young democracy came to maturity, bringing political participation, opportunity, and political power even to the lowest class of citizens, and their novel constitution went on to take root in other Greek cities. It was a time of extraordinary cultural achievement, as well, probably unmatched in originality and richness in all of human history. Dramatic poets like Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes raised tragedy and comedy to a level never surpassed. The architects and sculptors who created the Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis in Athens, at Olympia, and all over the Greek world powerfully influenced the course of Western art and still do so today. Natural philosophers like Anaxagoras and Democritus used unaided human reason to seek an understanding of the physical world, and such pioneers of moral and political philosophy as Protagoras and Socrates did the same in the realm of human affairs. Hippocrates and his school made great advances in medical science, and Herodotus invented historiography as we understand it today.

The Peloponnesian War not only brought this remarkable period to an end, but was recognized as a critical turning point even by those who fought it. The great historian Thucydides tells us that he undertook his history as the war began,

in the belief that it would be great and noteworthy above all the wars that had gone before, inferring this from the fact that both powers were then at their best in preparedness for war in every way, and seeing the rest of the Hellenic people taking sides with one side or the other, some at once, others planning to do so. For this was the greatest upheaval that had ever shaken the Hellenes, extending also to some part of the barbarians, one might say even to a very large part of mankind. (1.1.2)1

From the perspective of the fifth-century Greeks the Peloponnesian War was legitimately perceived as a world war, causing enormous destruction of life and property, intensifying factional and class hostility, and dividing the Greek states internally and destabilizing their relationship to one another, which ultimately weakened their capacity to resist conquest from outside. It also reversed the tendency toward the growth of democracy. When Athens was powerful and successful, its democratic constitution had a magnetic effect on other states, but its defeat was decisive in the political development of Greece, sending it in the direction of oligarchy.

The Peloponnesian War was also a conflict of unprecedented brutality, violating even the harsh code that had previously governed Greek warfare and breaking through the thin line that separates civilization from savagery. Anger, frustration, and the desire for vengeance increased as the fighting dragged on, resulting in a progression of atrocities that included maiming and killing captured opponents; throwing them into pits to die of thirst, starvation, and exposure; and hurling them into the sea to drown. Bands of marauders murdered innocent children. Entire cities were destroyed, their men killed, their women and children sold as slaves. On the island of Corcyra, now called Corfu, the victorious faction in a civil war brought on by the larger struggle butchered their fellow citizens for a full week: "Sons were killed by their father, and suppliants dragged from the altar or slain upon it" (3.81.2-5).

As the violence spread it brought a collapse in the habits, institutions, beliefs, and restraints that are the foundations of civilized life. The meanings of words changed to suit the bellicosity: "Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness." Religion lost its restraining power, "but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation." Truth and honor disappeared, "and society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow" (3.82.1, 8; 3.83.1). Such was the conflict that inspired Thucydides' mordant observations on the character of war as "a savage schoolmaster that brings the characters of most people down to the level of their current circumstances" (3.82.2).

Although the Peloponnesian War ended more than twenty-four hundred years ago it has continued to fascinate readers of every subsequent age. Writers have used it to illuminate the First World War, most frequently to help explain its causes, but its greatest influence as an analytical tool may have come during the Cold War, which dominated the second half of the twentieth century, and which likewise witnessed a world divided into two great power blocs, each under a powerful leader. Generals, diplomats, statesmen, and scholars alike have compared the conditions that led to the Greek war with the rivalry between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

But the story of what actually took place two and a half millennia in the past, and its deeper meaning, are ultimately not easy to grasp. By far the most important source of our knowledge is the history written by the war's contemporary and participant Thucydides. His work is justly admired as a masterpiece of historical writing and hailed for its wisdom about the nature of war, international relations, and mass psychology. It has also come to be regarded as a foundation stone of historical method and political philosophy. It is not, however, completely satisfactory as a chronicle of the war and all that the war can teach us. Its most obvious shortcoming is that it is incomplete, stopping in midsentence seven years before the war's end. For an account of the final part of the conflict we must rely on writers of much less talent and with little or no direct knowledge of events. At the very least, a modern treatment of accessible scope is needed to make sense of the conclusion of the war.

But even the period treated by Thucydides requires illumination if the modern reader is to have the fullest understanding of its military, political, and social complexities. The works of other ancient writers and contemporary inscriptions discovered and studied in the last two centuries have filled gaps and have sometimes raised questions about the story as Thucydides tells it. Finally, any satisfactory history of the war also demands a critical look at Thucydides himself. His was an extraordinary and original mind, and more than any other historian in antiquity he placed the highest value on accuracy and objectivity. We must not forget, however, that he was also a human being with human emotions and foibles. In the original Greek his style is often very compressed and difficult to understand, so that any translation is by necessity an interpretation. The very fact that he was a participant in the events, moreover, influenced his judgments in ways that must be prudently evaluated. Simply accepting his interpretations uncritically would be as limiting as accepting without question Winston Churchill's histories and his understanding of the two world wars in which he played so important a role.

In this book I attempt a new history of the Peloponnesian War designed to meet the needs of readers in the twenty-first century. It is based on the scholarship employed in my four volumes on the war aimed chiefly at a scholarly audience,2 but my goal here is a readable narrative in a single volume to be read by the general reader for pleasure and to gain the wisdom that so many have sought in studying this war. I have avoided making comparisons between events in it and those in later history, although many leap to mind, in the hope that an uninterrupted account will better allow readers to draw their own conclusions.

I undertake this project after so many years because I believe, more than ever, that the story of the Peloponnesian War is a powerful tale that may be read as an extraordinary human tragedy, recounting the rise and fall of a great empire, the clash between two very different societies and ways of life, the interplay of intelligence and chance in human affairs, and the role of brilliantly gifted individuals, as well as masses of people in determining the course of events while subject to the limitations imposed upon them by nature, by fortune, and by one another. I hope to demonstrate, also, that a study of the Peloponnesian War is a source of wisdom about the behavior of human beings under the enormous pressures imposed by war, plague, and civil strife, and about the potentialities of leadership and the limits within which it must inevitably operate.

1Adapted from the translation of Richard Crawley (Modern Library, New York, 1951). Throughout, references are to Thucydides' history of the Peloponnesian War unless otherwise indicated. The numbers refer to the traditional divisions by book, chapter, and section.2These have been published by the Cornell University Press. Their titles are The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (1969), The Archidamian War (1974), The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition (1981), and The Fall of the Athenian Empire (1987).

Revue de presse

"The best account [of the Peloponnesian War] now available." —Los Angeles Times Book Review

"A fresh, clear and fast-moving account... for general readers." —The New York Times Book Review

"Drawing on incomparable knowledge as a classicist, international relations theorist and military historian, Donald Kagan... has devoted a single volume to guiding us through that epic of miscalculation, hubris and strategic overreach, supplyingsupplemental observations and correctives to Thucydides’ classic History of the Peloponnesian War." —The Washington Post

Donald Kagan, one of the foremost scholars of Ancient Greek history, wrote a concise but thorough history of the Peloponnesian War for a general audience based off his four-volume academic masterpiece on the same subject. From the start Kagan brings the reader to the time period of the war with enough background information that someone not familiar at all with Ancient Greece will understand the circumstances of the beginning of the war from each side's viewpoint. Throughout the work, Kagan brings in a modern military and political view to help examine decisions of either side that the ancient sources' explain as social virtue or vice. This supplement to the ancient sources helps give a fuller view of the decisions of the Athenians, Spartans, and their respective allies. If you want to learn about Ancient Greek history beyond Marathon or Thermopylae, I fully recommend this book.

Soldiers of Salamis is a novel by Javier Cercas. The title conveys a central theme. The Battle of Salamis, between the Greek and Persian navies, took place in 480 BC. To all too many of today’s Spaniards, the events of their own Civil War, of which a few participants are still living, are as remote as those that occurred at Salamis. The Peloponnesian War commenced a half century after the Battle of Salamis. It would also be a Civil War, Greek upon Greek. It was a war that I knew little about, but would feel comfortable using as a metaphor for wars of long ago, even though some of the participants of those wars were still living. I knew that it was a war between Athens and Sparta, but I was not even sure who won. (And how many Americans know who won the Spanish Civil War?)

Donald Kagan’s book (finally!) ended the darkness of not knowing about one of the best documented of ancient conflicts, and a prototype for so many subsequent ones. He has produced a very well-written dense, scholarly work that relies on several ancient texts, most notably one written by a participant, Thucydides. He brings a modern sense of judgment to the historical record, balancing what is written with the most likely scenarios possible, based on his overall knowledge of this time period. There are 29 excellent maps, spaced appropriately throughout the book, that provide the visual basis for understanding the narrative of the battles, and geopolitical landscape.

Athens and Sparta. A long term rivalry. Two rather different systems of government, with the Athenians famously having a democratic form. Both had united to beat the Persians, a half century earlier. Neither really wanted war, fearful of the expense and consequences. But entangling alliances, and some “damnable conflict in the Balkans” which were the motive forces that commenced the First World War were operative in commencing the Peloponnesian one also. Athens was the naval superpower of the time, dominating (in general) the sea. Sparta was the land power, and could simple march into the Athenian territory of Attica at the beginning of the war, and start devastating their farms and agriculture.

The war raged over the entirety of modern day Greece, the islands in the Aegean Sea, the western coast of modern day Turkey, including the two straits leading to the Black Sea, as well as the coast of southern Italy and Sicily. The war would last for almost three decades, with one significant truce of several years that was frequently violated. Athens had its sea-based empire; Sparta had numerous land-based allies, such as Corinth and Thebes. Athens and Sparta both experienced revolts in their empires. Cities would change sides. Each side also experienced class conflicts, essentially the eternal ones, between the elites and the plebs. And naturally the elites themselves had many a conflict, as egos jockeyed for power. Most impressively, somehow Donald Kagan makes these complex events of almost two and a half millennium ago understandable to the modern reader, by identifying five or ten key causative factors to significant events, and then providing balanced, reasonable judgments.

A small sampling of what I learned. The fighting in Sicily was a disaster for Athens. It was initiated by a bluff that was called; the Athenian leader did NOT want to go there… thought he would overestimate what was required, and his bluff was called, not once, but twice, when he asked for reinforcement. The defeat in Sicily should have been the KO punch for Athens, but the war dragged on for another decade. Both sides ran to their former adversary, the Persian Empire, and sought aid and an alliance; rather amazing for two city-states proclaiming the importance of Greek independence. Alcibiades was one slippery character. He was Athenian, went over to the side of Sparta, cuckolded Sparta’s king, then ingratiated himself with Cyrus, the 17 year old son of King Darius of Persia, and made himself out to be the critical and decisive factor behind the great Athenian navel victory at Cyzicus. And as the dragged on, the savagery, brutality, and atrocities increased, which included the execution of their own generals and leaders.

And there was much that I did not learn, but certainly do not fault Kagan for it. He covered well enough complex material. How, for example, given the difficulty in transportation, and with only rudimentary hand-tools, and a population devastated by war and the plague, was Athens (as well as Sparta) able to build (and maintain) so many triremes. Athens was dependent on wheat from the Black Sea area. Where exactly, and what were the terms of trade. And why was Sparta not?

Finally, the time-worn adage that history is written by the winners appears NOT to be true about the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides was an Athenian, and they were the losers…at least for a while. 6-stars for Kagan’s excellent account.

Donald Kagan did a great job, accurately merging description and strategic analysis. The only week point is that maps are a little bit to simplistic, and not always well connected to the events they are supposed to illustarte. Anyway, I assume that this is a cheap edition, and that the strategic analysis and the description of the decission making processess compenste this weakness.

I became interested in ancient warfare and history by way of war gaming, and in particular I became interested in the warfare of the Greek and classical era. This book was recommended to me by my brother who is an avid classical history buff. I found this book to be extremely easy to read for someone like me with no real historical academic background. It is informative and paced well, not dry at all as I feared going into it. I learned more about the warfare and intrigue between Sparta and Athens in the fist 40 pages than I had ever known before in my life. Very, very, satisfying read. I could not recommend this book strongly enough for anyone with an interest in classical or Greek history.

Thucydides work is still the best but this history is gripping. It actually makes the ancient text more coherent. The voice of the reader is clear and soothing. I have read a lot of CD books; this is one of the best.